14 DAY TRIAL // Memory chips manufacturer Rambus has just won in the patent infringement lawsuit against its competitors, after about ten years of trials. According to the jury investigating the case, Rambus was not found guilty of monopolistic practices against its competitors by patenting technologies that imposed themselves as standards.
The lawsuit was filled back in 2000 by chip manufacturers Micron Technology Inc., Hynix Semiconductor Inc. and Nanya Technology, and alleged that the patents held by Rambus for essential memory-related technologies should be nulled. They also claimed that the royalty fees they had to pay to Rambus would have to be dropped.
Despite the verdict, the Federal Trade Commission unveiled that the memory manufacturer has withheld essential information from the JEDEC council while outlining the technical standards in memory manufacturing. According to the Commission, Rambus tricked the Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (JEDEC) into including standards already patented by Rambus.
As a result, other companies developing memory-based products are required to either pay royalty fees to Rambus or infringe on the manufacturer's secured patents. Yesterday's decision allows Rambus to collect the royalty fees from other manufacturers, but according to the company officials, this will be an extremely difficult task.
"The issue of the behavior of Rambus at JEDEC has really been a problem for Rambus, because the manufacturers have turned it into a cause celebre, saying we behaved improperly and illegally," said Thomas Lavelle, Rambus' general counsel. "This jury found that's not the case. We believe it vindicates what we've done."
Rambus gets most of its revenue by licensing its in-house designed memory chips to other DRAM manufacturing companies. According to the latest reports, Rambus accounted for $180 million in revenue during 2007.
However, the final verdict seems to have displeased Micron, another important player in the DRAM market, and the company said that it would appeal the jury's finding.
"Micron believes that Rambus has engaged in a pattern of deception, destruction of evidence, false testimony and other improper activities designed to mislead and to extract unjust patent licensing fees and damages," Rod Lewis, Micron's general counsel, said in a statement. "We will continue to vigorously advance our claims that Rambus has engaged in a variety of illegal activities designed to injure Micron."